Bat-Bogey Master
by Venezia Catanei
Summary: Welcome in Ginny's head, ooops! I meant, in the Hogwarts Express, and find out how the youngest Weasley became a member of the Slug Club thanks to a hex that should have earned her a detention.


**Hi everybody! Here's the translation of my second fanfic and first oneshot "Chauve-Furie Master". Many thanks my beta-reader, zeldalover272. I hope you'll have fun reading it, and don't forget to let a review if you think my text is worth it. **

**Disclaimer:**** All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. All characters and names associated to "Harry Potter" are the property of Warner Bros Corp. and J.K. Rowling. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. **

_**Bold italics is directly quoted from J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"**_

11 o'clock: the train whistles at length one last time before moving off. Taking in its carriages, hundreds of young people avid to learn the subtleties of magic, subtleties that only Hogwarts' teachers, with the passion that characterize them, can implant in them... Not very credible, huh? Listen, I'll do it again.

11 o' clock: the last train's whistle traumatizes the passengers' eardrums as well as the ones of the people staying on the platform. A few seconds later, the train takes to Hogwarts hundreds of students ravished to be able to make cauldrons explode, transfigure their classmates into jumping baboons, cause the most possible mayhem during the lessons hoping to drive teachers insane and play nasty tricks on the concierge again. _That's _it! Sounds much more realistic now.

My name is Ginny Weasley. It's the fifth time I'm at this train station. I had been waiting for eleven years, before being allowed to go on the train. Eleven years looking at my brothers climbing its foot board up and making themselves comfortable in one or another of the compartments, with Mum who never wanted me to follow them.

Well, to be honest, it was not the train that interested me, but what was at its end: Hogwarts. That magic school, where everything is so great, so beautiful, so crazy, where one learns so many things and where one has so much fun.

That magical school where a megalomaniac psychopath hidden in a diary possessed me. Where an escaped murderer from Azkaban, very sympathetic in fact, had found a refuge next to his childhood's friend: my werewolf of a defence against the dark arts teacher. Where a poly-juiced death eater has used the man of my life to let a body be given to his master. (The same megalomaniac psychopath who had possessed me during my first year.) Where a pink cat-loving batrachian decided to commit a putsch against Dumbledore and to reduce the teachers into slavers. Where I will perhaps be able to spend a quiet year with my friends, my brother and the father of my future children. What a beautiful dream...

The right-side pocket of my muggle jacket creaks. I suppose Arnold is fed up and feels too hot. I had hidden it there because I was afraid to asphyxiate it if I put it in my trunk and I was afraid that keeping him on my shoulder as I did at home those last weeks, wouldn't have failed to call for the muggles' attention on us. Since they already looked strangely at us because of Hedwig, that hates being locked up in its cage and never stops her ear-splitting ululations and of pig that, despite the passing years, still hasn't understood that it's not because it smashes itself against the bars that it'll be able to go out, I thought it wasn't worth to aggrandize with my little pretty fuchsia-pink furry ball. A last goodbye with the hand to my parents and… Poc poc! Harry pokes me on the shoulder and asks me whether I want to look for a not-so-full (free would be a complete utopia) compartment.

Really, couldn't he have asked this question in the past years, when I was desperately alone and desperately in love with him? Because now, I'm not alone anymore, and not desperate either. However, I'm still in love with him.

How come I'm not logical? Sure I am! It's just a part of the genial plan Hermione imagined to let him fall into my arms! I'll explain: I made _such_ a fool of myself in front of Harry from my first to my third school year, that he ended up ignoring my very existence, as if I were part of the accessories automatically delivered with every single copy of his best friend**, **my adorable prat of a brother Ronald. After Hermione, he's not even aware that I am a girl, a bit like Ron with her during the TriWizard Tournament.

As a consequence, I needed to find a way to make him open his eyes and in her opinion, the best way to show him that I really am a girl, was to live my own life and, why not? Go out with someone else! That's where the first try with Michael Corner comes from. That one was a youth's mistake: not even pretty, his only ambition was to bring home the Ravenclaw prefect badge this year and he was already anticipating the location where we would spend our golden wedding anniversary. For once, Ron was right, that guy was a real tosser. I told you: youths' mistake! Now I'm going out with Dean Thomas, a muggle born who shares Ron and Harry's room. Beautiful guy, not stupid at all and exceptionally nice... definitely, _definitely_ never introduce him to Mum!

After warning Harry with a wide sadistic grin that I promised the instrument of my devilish plan to get him to join him and that, hurrah! He answers me that it doesn't matter with a deliciously annoyed face, I go and look for Dean, most probably pasted to Seamus Finnigan. I did not really like that last one's behaviour with Harry in the beginning of the last year, but it looks like my current boyfriend and his hench man have experienced a derivative of the permanent sticking charm, so I try to manage. Well, as long as he is not too close when we kiss…

'I don't believe you.'

That guy's getting on my last nerve! It hasn't even been half an hour that I'm on the train, and it's already been twenty minutes that the nature's error answering to the hideous name of Zacharias Smith, is spoiling my existence with his interrogatory on what happened in the Department of Mysteries. I never understood why we ever let that one get in the D.A.! Perhaps because with his signature on the enchanted parchment, there were fewer risks that he would report the thing to Hogwarts' "Great Inquisitor".

'For the last time, Smith, I told you everything that had to be told!'

'You're hiding something from me, I know it. Anyway, I always said Potter was louche, but you, Ginevra, you are not like him. You and me, Ginevra, we were in the same fucking boat. Bollocks! I got detention because of that freaking defence club! I've earned the right to know the truth. Tell me EVERYTHING.' he orders me.

No one. I said. No one. Calls me. GINEVRA! Banzaïïï! I jump on my feet, draw my wand, focus and...

'CHIROPTERENI FURIAERUM!'

Smith flees, screaming like a baby girl, followed by my bats. I am particularly proud of myself today, there were a lot of them and they were extremely virulent. I _love_ that spell! It's the first hex I ever learned. Bill showed it to me when we went to Egypt to visit him, after Fred and George had tried to lock me up into a bewitched sarcophagus. I had no wand yet, so he first taught me how to pronounce the formula, and then he trained me to the wand move with a wood stick. Arrived at Hogwarts, I trained myself in the park, at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, when I wasn't with Tom. Year after year**, **I became a real expert: even my brothers are freaking out. Except Ron, but that's because he still hasn't done anything grievous enough to deserve to feel my wand's power. Or because I am more indulgent on him than on the others. It would deserve to be pondered in a more precise analysis of my subconscious' secret depths. We'll do that another time, don't worry! Honestly, using that hex is always fun: who would expect to see a spell of that level, demanding a total combined mastering of transfiguration and charms, so perfectly executed by the sweet, the innocent youngest Weasley? Well, with my brothers, there's no surprise effect anymore, but since I'm extremely effective, the aimed goal is always reached...

'Hum! Hum!'

Help! Umbridge is in the train! I turn around, ready to attack the person thwarting me from peacefully Bat-Bogey-hex people and find myself in front of a... teacher. Probably Umbridge's substitute. I had never seen his face before. Gulp! The school year has not even begun and I'll already get a detention... It's not me! It's my wand! It makes crazy things by its own will; you have no idea how hard it is to force it to stay calm!

'Your name, please?'

'Ginny Weasley.' I answer in the most innocent manner possible.

'Well, Miss Weasley, what would you say about lunching with some of your schoolmates and my old self? I received from Cook Hirsinger, the founder of "Sweetieking Cake Shops"**, **a nougat cake that seems absolutely fabulous and that I would gladly taste with you.'

Eyes opened round like saucers, I look at that teacher whose name I don't even know. He looks like a big slug. Are slugs blind? He MUST have seen that I was the one to perform the hex... why doesn't he punish me? Hold on! I am not a masochist, but still! Since when does a teacher not punish a student who used magic against a schoolmate before even the beginning of the school year?

'I...'

«Come on, Miss Weasley, don't be shy! After all, we will probably meet every week during the school year.»

'Right. Okay...'

The prof. Slug (I can't help it, when I don't know people's name, I invent. It helps me to identify them, after) smiles to me like a six-year-old who was just promised his birthday would be celebrated twice.

'Wonderful, wonderful. Meet me in around twenty minutes then. I settled in the C carriage, a little further at the head of the train'

O.K. The C carriage. At the head of the train. Nougat. I hate nougat, it sticks to your teeth.

The C carriage is full of students. I wonder where the slug's hiding. I go on while looking through all the glazed doors of the compartments. I spot one which curtains are closed. It's probably here. I knock, and the same debonair voice that invited me to lunch in the C carriage invites me to come in. When I pass the door, some students are already there. I know them all, more or less. There is that bragger of McLaggen (Gryffindor, 7th year), Zabini (Slytherin, 6th year) and his carrot up the a**, and Belby the glutton (Ravenclaw, 7th year). I greet each of them with a nod and telling their family name. See how polite I am? My Mum would be proud of me.

'Come in, come in, Miss Weasley, don't be shy. Have a sit next to me. Now we are expecting only two other students, Mr Potter and Mr Longbottom.'

'You invited Harry and Neville too?" I ask with enthusiasm.'

I mean, really, I'm the only person here who it's not a shame to frequent, so if Harry and Neville could come and raise the bar a bit...

'Absolutely, do you know them personally?'

'They are good friends of mine, and Harry is my brother Ron's best friend.'

'Indeed? I guess you and me will get along very well.'

If he says so...

Waiting for the two slowpokes, the professor Slug (I don't dare asking him his real name) lets me speak about myself. Apparently, I'm the only one he didn't know before. I don't understand why he insists so heavily on knowing whether I like potions and have good marks in that branch. I mean, as far as I know, he's a defence against the dark arts teacher, not a potions teacher... He seems delighted with my grades. Not easy to get with Snape, especially given that some of my brothers have let or still let him have bad souvenirs, but I always persevered in that branch and it paid. Why so much tenaciousness?

My greatest dream is poisoning my brothers. All of them. Even Bill. Though**,** having taught me the bat-bogey hex will maybe allow him to know a less painful fate than the others. Don't misunderstand me, I love my brothers, I really do. But they all did something _very_ _nasty,_ and they're all going to pay a_ very dear price_ for it. But well, for now all I'm doing is accumulating knowledge. I'll create my vengeance potion later... Wow! I'm seriously drifting apart the main topic. Slugface asks me about my career's projects. I answer that I sincerely have no idea about it.

'Of course, of course, Miss Weasley. If you do not contradict any of the numerous qualities that you showed me today, so many doors will open to you that you will only be annoyed with the large number of possibilities.'

This said, he abandons me to unpack his picnic. To be telling the truth, I still haven't understood what I'm doing here. Who knows, maybe it's a trick to soothe my defiance, and then he'll give me detention hours till the end of the school year, just like that, bam! Without the slightest warning. Brrr! I'm shivering just at the thought.

The sound of a door pushes me out of my nightmares. Finally! Harry and Neville are there. Apparently, they haven't seen me. The slug makes a mock of introductions between people who seem destined to love each other if it's not already the case... just kidding! Lastly, he passes one of his big arms around my shoulder to bring me out of my anonymousness. I try to give them both a radiant smile but it probably looks more like a grimace because I don't feel exactly at ease now, that very moment. Fortunately, the slug lets me go to pass around his picnic's serving dishes and I'm beginning to believe he anticipated the said picnic for several persons: the nougat cake is not the only thing that is too big for one single man.

We barely began to eat any minutes ago and here's Belby already choking with a piece of roasted pheasant. Such a shame the professor sent an "Anapneo" to prevent him from choking totally, the purple shade of his face was perfectly fitting his blue shirt.

A little later, McLaggen opens his mouth and the torture begins. I already had to do with him once, in the common room. I was unfortunate enough to ask him to lend me his quill to quickly write something. One hour later, I knew the name of his first teddy bear, which aliments he was allergic to, his great-grandaunt per alliance's first name and the list of all the wonderful places in the world on which he (probably never) set feet.

Now, he is spieling Slug about a Nogtails' hunt in the Norfolk with Bertie Higgs and the minister-that-was-not-minister-yet. Ten galleons that Higgs and Scrimegeour weren't hunting but were in a mission and that he just caught a glimpse on them from far... I don't have ten galleons? I know, but I would win my bet without problem: Dad told me that Tiberius McLaggen and Rufus Scrimegeour can't endure each other, and that would be from their first year in Hogwarts. Happily enough, before letting us taste the nougat cake that I am categorically not looking forward to chewing, the professor changes interlocutor. Now he's on Harry. Poor thing! For one who likes remaining unnoticed and being a normal boy, it's a little unsuccessful. Even more when the slug tells him that some rumours award him powers more than extraordinary.

That instant, I hear a little cough. Umbridge style, but more posh. Zabini, obviously. Prat! Nobody attacks my Harry, is that understood? More over when "nobody" is not even able to distinguish ginger from a blow ball root! (It's Dean who told me that. We only owe Snape's and the Gryffindor and Slytherin current sixth year students' survival to the salutary reflexes of Zabini's future-deatheater blondie best friend.) I articulate a very polite little sentence (the slug seems to like me**, **however one should not hold the wolf by the ears) but still sharply ironic to explain him that he can put himself that little cough where I think he can, along with a "Prewett style" dark look (thanks Mum!). The professor seems ecstatic. I'm not sure I understand why, but who cares?

'**Oh dear! You want to be careful, Blaise! I saw this young lady perform the most marvelous Bat-Bogey Hex as I was passing her carriage! I wouldn't cross her!' he says cackling with contentment.**

You know… I think I like that teacher!

Zabini's only answer is a disdainful snort. Right, he's really asking for it, isn't he?

'I would be extremely glad to let you see another one, professor.' I say.

Now beware, Zabini! No one messes with the Bat-Bogey Master.


End file.
